(A little bit of blood is mentioned in this chapter, no fighting or gore mind you, just a warning for anyone who might want to avoid it, skip the paragraph with the red orb. -N64Fan)

It was the morning after the incident and Scootaloo walked with Crimson Turn and the doctors as they headed toward the hospital room Inventor had been placed in. The goal was to remove his clothing and check for wounds on his skin. It had been a long night and the other ponies in the hospital had been taken care of first before they had even agreed to look at the odd monster that had come in with a white shirt stained red.

The medical ponies had insisted that both pegasi be there for the examination as they had both been direct witnesses to the act and might be able to help locate the wound, upon cutting open the red shirt that covered his chest that was hardly necessary. Metallic shrapnel had been lodged in his chest when his pocket watch had shattered, blood was already pooling around the shallow wounds.

The red pegasus gasped as she looked at the wound she had caused, inside her mind the mare began to berate herself and her own actions, reliving all the time her parents had said that she couldn’t do anything right. Her self-punishment was interrupted when Scootaloo stood next to her. When she looked down at the small filly a look of determination met her eyes, with a soft nod the red pegasus reaffirmed herself and looked once again at the unconscious human body on the table in front of her. A small glint near the sleeve of his shirt caught her eye.

“Do you think you could cut open his sleeve as well? I think I saw something there.” Crimson asked the doctors had she narrowed her eyes at the spot where the glint had been only moments before. The hospital staff talked among themselves for the briefest of moments before they cut open his sleeve as well. The result left the doctors shocked, Crimson looking on in awe and Scootaloo glancing quickly between all the adults with a confused look as she tried to spot what everyone was looking at, her height working against her.

“b-b-b-but that’s not even possible!” One of the doctors sputtered as the clockwork ticking echoed around the room. “That breaks all rules of gear work, no magic is even being used to keep the thing working correctly!”

“That’s amazing.” Crimson said with her mouth agape, she could hardly believe she was looking at what the creature had used to replace a missing arm, a basic container had been made out of half rotted wood and scrap iron to keep the parts intact but behind it Crimson could make out an entire mechanical limb running on nothing but cogs.

Scootaloo managed to climb up the edge of the bed using what little lift she could get from her wings as she pushed herself up the side. “That explains so much, I always wondered where that ticking came from.” the orange pegasus said nonchalantly.

A sharp inhale broke from the body that lay on the bed as it’s eyes danced around the gathered faces, many of which were looking at the now awake man who should have by all rights been dead. Bar two faces that is, a red pegasus was staring completely enraptured at his mechanical arm which was now in full view. The other was Scootaloo and Inventor breathed a brief sigh of relief. “Scoots, can you get a glowing red orb from my bag please.”

With a quick nod from the filly she clambered into the bed and over to the bag which lay at Inventor’s side. She pulled out a red orb from the bag and Crimson Turn’s attention was immediately grabbed by this odd device. “Right, now hold it just above the pieces that are in my chest if you would be so kind.” Following her dad’s instructions the young pegasus did so. There was a soft hum for a moment then all the pieces shot out the wound and locked onto the red orb, they all attached to the outside of the device with a loud ‘clang’.

Scootaloo almost fell backwards from the sudden noise, a burst of blood came out with the pieces and Inventor let out a gasp of pain before the blood settled back on his chest. “Right, now then,” Inventor turned his gaze over to the doctors. “Do you think you could bind this for me? I need to get going, Scootaloo here has to go to a few meetups with her friends for the weekend and, knowing her, she wouldn’t leave my bedside for the entire weekend if I was in the hospital.”

The doctors were stunned for a minute, then one of them spoke up, “We can’t let you go, you’re bleeding heavily and I highly doubt you can stand.”

“Oh pshaw, I’ve been better after worse, I’ll be fine.” Inventor said as he reached his organic arm up into the air. “See? Perfect motor control, now if you wouldn’t mind, oh never mind I’ve lost more blood then I thought.” Inventor blacked out again as his arm fell down to his side.

With a shake of her head, both to clear her mind and in response to the actions of the weird creature Crimson Turn turned to the medical ponies that we’re all looking dumbfoundedly at the human. “Just take care of him by staunching the blood flow, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Right Scootaloo?” She asked as she turned her gaze to the pegasus filly who nodded affirmatively in response.

After a few more moments of hesitant glances between the doctors they began treating the chest wound. The two pegasi left the room and returned to the lobby where they found Rainbow Dash sitting agitatedly on one of the chairs, the two other fillies and the librarian having left to go to the theatrical performance that Inventor had planned. The cyan pegasus had disagreed to go with them to the theatre that she had viewed as boring.

She immediately realized her mistake when she was left alone in the empty lobby. The cyan pegasus was happy to have someone to talk to as she had been told off by the receptionist that she couldn’t fly in the lobby. “So how’s he doing?” She asked excitedly almost blowing over the other two pegasus with a mad dash before they could respond.

Scootaloo made to respond to the energetic athlete’s question but was cut off by Crimson Turn. “He has the most amazing mechanical device I’ve ever seen and he’s using it as a spare limb! Those other inventions as well, that creature is a genius inventor.” She blurted out, “The amazing turning of those cogs dancing a perfect tango to the ticking sound, so inspired.”

Scootaloo and Rainbow looked at Crimson with raised eyebrows, the cyan mare was the first to speak, “I’m guessing you are an inventor too?” With a blushed nod from the red pegasus Rainbow smiled “Great, now there’s two of you, because one didn’t confuse us enough, Inventor and you are going to get along great.”

“His name is Inventor? That sounds like a weird hybrid between pony names and griffin names or something, and it sounds completely made up,” Crimson replied to which Rainbow slowly nodded.

Scootaloo spoke up, “You two sound different though, you both speak about technology with the same kind of....” Scootaloo paused as she searched for the word, “passion, but when he talks about it it’s more of a confusing smart and long worded explanation while when you speak it’s more of a confusing artistic... thing. Both of you are so weird.”

There was a brief silence before Rainbow spoke up “Wait, one of his body parts is actually an invention? Well I guess that would explain the ticking.”

“Yeah, his right arm is actually clockwork,” Crimson said with a nod, “Pretty cool if you ask me.” The cyan mare nodded in agreement. “Oh, how rude of me I forgot to introduce myself earlier, my name is Crimson Turn and yours is?”

The cyan mare puffed her chest out as she stood on her hind legs, “Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in all of Equestria, but of course you’ve probably heard of me.”

“Can’t say I have.” The red mare returned which caused the prideful mare to deflat her chest in defeat, “Of course I really don’t talk to anyone besides my customers since my parents disowned me. And even then it’s usually just to barter about the price of an object that they had accepted to pay full price for earlier.”

The introductions between the three of the ponies continued on through the afternoon as Rainbow bragged about all the tricks that she knew and was going to perform for the trials to get into the Wonderbolts. Scootaloo listened intently to the cyan mare’s dreams and aspirations occasionally throwing in a few comments of her own, Crimson just sat on a chair a looked at a wall with her eyes glazed over.

The newest discussion about Rainbow’s tricks had been raging on about her Buccaneer Blaze when the trio of ponies who had left earlier arrived back at the hospital, another round of introductions followed between the new arrivals and Crimson before the conversations broke off into a few seperate discussions. It was in the middle of one of these that a nurse came down to inform them that Inventor was healing rapidly and would be good to leave in the morning.

Rainbow, Twilight, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle left for the hotel leaving Scootaloo and Crimson behind in the hospital to be there to greet Inventor when he woke up. After a few good nights from all the ponies they each headed off to bed. Which, for the orange and red pegasus, meant the floor of the hospital. A few times before she fell asleep Scootaloo tried to start a discussion with the inventor pegasus but her questions were answered shortly and eventually the purple maned pegasus decided to go to bed. Eventually the mechanic pony did as well to the memories of her foalhood.

Scootaloo’s dreams started off alright as she was running around with the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to find their special talents. This particular one involved running through town and, try as she might, the orange pegasus couldn’t keep up with her friends who ran gleefully off into the darkness and left her behind. The darkness began to laugh at the flightless pegasus and the voices of Silverspoon and Diamond Tiara started harassing her.

She curled into a small ball to try and protect herself from the insults as the darkness enclosed around her, just as she was scared that the darkness was going to collapse in on her and consume her a ticking noise filled the air. She raised her head to see Inventor walking towards her, his trademark smile on his face. As he approached the darkness around her seemed to run away, scared of this new arrival.

She ran to Inventor and he caught her in his arms and put her on his mechanical shoulder, “I would never leave you unless I knew you could handle yourself, you know that right?” The man said as the two walked on. Not long after the statement both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle came running back to join the duo and apologized for accidentally leaving her behind. The rest of the dream went by peacefully as she ran around, never finding her cutie mark but always happy after they had done some daring trick.

As the light began to trickle in from the door at the front of the hospital Scootaloo opened her eyes and smiled, that had been a good dream. She realized she wasn’t on the floor of the hospital where she had fallen asleep. Her eyes drowsily drifted around the room until it settled on the source of what had moved her last night. Inventor lay with his eyes closed and leaning against a chair back, he had somehow pieced his shirt back together and Scootaloo now laid against his chest as she rested on his mechanical arm which was covered to the wrist with his shirt but left his hand fully exposed due to a missing glove.

With a smile the orange pegasus lightly stepped off out of his arm and moved over to a nearby chair, the man’s eyes flicked open and he smiled at Scootaloo, “Sorry about that Scoots, I was having issues getting to sleep last night, I couldn’t think up any mathematical equations to keep my mind busy so I came down here, you were writhing in your sleep and so I picked you up and sat in the chair, seems I drifted off at some point.”

Scootaloo only smiled in return as the man stretched out both of his arms into the air, “So,” Inventor continued “Who’s our insanely powerful mare here?” the madman asked as his gaze drifted over to the red pegasus who was asleep on the ground.

“She’s Crimson Turn, and she invents for her job, she knows quite a bit about clockwork, you should have seen how she was complimenting on your arm.” Scootaloo said with a yawn, “She called you a genius inventor.” Scootaloo added as an afterthought.

“Funny, I would have called her the same thing.” Inventor replied as he looked around his room from his position on the chair, “Quite a nice room isn’t it Crimson?” the man asked then paused and looked at the mare, “You can stop pretending to be asleep you know, you’re horrible at it.”

The red pegasus opened her eyes and looked at Inventor, “What gave me away?” She asked the human.

“Your eyes weren’t in R.E.M state, hardly believable.” Inventor replied.

“And? There are stages in between said state where the eyes don’t move. You can’t possibly have known I was actually awake.”

“Perhaps, but at the same time the rotationary period for the cycles is pretty basic and there are signs that give away the other stages.”

“That theory is debunked and I can see in your smile that you know it.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Scootaloo interrupted “Or what you two are even discussing anymore.” the orange filly turned to face Inventor, “You said she was a genius inventor, what did you mean by that?”

Inventor looked happy that the conversation had been changed and gladly quenched the curiosity of the young pegasus, “She is working in a field that was usually ignored by almost all humans. She’s working in the field of bio-appropriate tech, she’s making tech that works with the body rather than on the assumption that the body is gone.” Inventor turned with a look of appraisal to the mare, “Those jacks on your legs that allow you the ability to walk are quite advanced and have my jealousy I hope you know.”

A brief break in sound followed in between clockwork beats where the mare blushed which was luckily blocked out by her coat color while Inventor mumbled to himself, “Crimson Turn, Blood Gear.” The mare flinched subconsciously at the second name but Inventor seemed not to notice as his smile faded, “But what’s in a name right? Just loose memories that are better off forgotten.”

Silence tried to cover the room but was beaten back by the continual rhythm of the artificial appendage, the half-silence continued until the quartet of ponies who had gone to the hotel returned. A smile emerged on Inventor’s face once again at the sight of his friends. “Good to see everyone is safe and sound, no one worried too much for me I hope?”

Rainbow was the first to respond, “Nah, you’re too tough for someone as cool as me to worry about you. You singlehandedly saved a filly from a random group of diamond dogs, if a single buck to the chest took you down I would have to have someone else go to the funeral for me out of shame.”

Twilight walked slowly up to Inventor before her horn began to glow, she raised his mechanical hand up off the chair rest and folded back the sleeve to get a better look at the inner workings. “Just as Crimson told us yesterday, that is indeed quite the advanced piece of work you have there on what is left of your shoulder. Too bad we’ll never hear the story of how you lost your original.” The purple mare said with a tense tone to her voice.

Inventor’s smile faltered once again before he could replace it with a fake grin to make everything look alright, ignoring the second part of the librarian’s statement Inventor began to talk, “Indeed, it took me awhile to figure out how to get a continuous or near continuous piece of motion that would move along with my thoughts, I utilized the basis idea of electronic pulses from brain waves in order to directly influence the moving of the arm, I installed just such a converter into my shoulder and then applied a receiver on the inside of the upper arm to control the movements.” Everyone except Crimson listened vaguely to the ramblings they were getting used to hearing. The red mare however was enraptured.

“How did you manage to overcome the constant evil of entropy using a system of gears, it seems like it would require to be wound every four minutes.” She said.

“Ah,” Inventor said as he tapped the side of his nose with his metal hand, “That was why I made highest use of gravitational torque in addition to the theological entropic side energy that’s given off as heat.”

“Ugh, told ya, two of them,” Rainbow said while she rolled her eyes.

“Regardless,” Twilight said as she looked back at the two technologically inclined personalities as they chatted happily, occasionally one would interrupt the other to ask about a specific aspect of the other’s field. “We should get going so we can get to that musical act for Sweetie Belle.”

After a few more minutes of discussion the group had signed Inventor out of the hospital and all seven of the bodies made their way toward the musical hall planning on buying a seventh ticket for Crimson upon arrival. When the group had arrived at the concert hall they managed to snag a spot for the red pegasus with the rest of the group.

As they stood patiently in line and waited for the time when they could take their position in the hall the ponies behind them began to move to the side, Curious as to the commotion Inventor turned his head with a raised eyebrow to see what had caused the ponies to give up their precious positions in line. It didn’t take long before a loud voice announced the answer to the man’s silent question.

“I, Prince Blueblood, demand all commoners out of my way so I may enter the theatre.” The voice called, full of pretentiousness.

Inventor made no movement to suggest he was going to be shifting, instead he turned the rest of his body to face the approaching white unicorn. The unicorn stopped and looked at Inventor expectantly, the ponies in the man’s group backed away shyly from the incoming confrontation. “I demand that you move you monster.”

Scootaloo spoke up defensively from behind the imposing silhouette of her dad, “What gives you the right to go around treating others like that?” the orange pegasus said before anyone could stop her, Twilight conjured a zipper on her mouth and closed it.

“As Prince, I demand that you monster and your lowly commoners depart from your position so I may enter this theatre.” The white unicorn repeated.

Inventor was directly in front of the pretentious royalty when he pulled his now clenched mechanical hand back and the gears inside it began to give off a whirring hum, “Insult my friends one more time and I’ll make it look like a blender ate your face then spit it back up.” The man threatened.

“Is this how all monsters act? In defense of their worthless friends for pointless reasons?” The prince asked.

“What was that? All I could hear you say was ‘oh yes, please turn my face into a smoothie.’” Inventor spat the words at the white unicorn. Both of the two fell into a glare, each one mustering a large amount of rage into their eyes. Before long the crowd began to unconsciously surround the two combatants not wanting to miss any of the actions.

“Wo wo wo, break it up,” A voice called and the crowd began to spread out once again to make room for the new arrival, as he entered the circle the blue unicorn shook his head, “Blueblood I thought we went over this, you can’t command my customers, now leave before I have to inform the princess of your actions, again.” With a harrumph the prince stormed off and around the corner, as soon he was out of sight a cheer erupted from the gathering of ponies and Inventor smiled.

“Looks like you have the crowd on your side.” The blue unicorn said to Inventor, “Now go on in and enjoy the show, you look like you deserve it.” Inventor could hardly focus on the musical act as the night ran past him, all he could remember was a very talented mare playing beautifully on the violin. The most important thing was that the people of Canterlot didn’t view him as some deadly monster anymore, or at least they didn’t right now and the lack of critical staring made Inventor once again feel like he belonged somewhere, a feeling that he hadn’t felt in at least a century.